Monday, September 15, 2014

Unstable

Barack Obama is not exactly enjoying his best stint as President. The Middle East is roiling, the economy isn't growing fast enough, Republicans hate him and Democrats are disappointed in him.

But among his accomplishments, we should be grateful that Obama prevent John McCain from becoming President. Let's leave off the fact that John McCain is the only reason we have to put up with the Crazy Brawling Caribou Barbie. I mean, that boneheaded, knee jerk decision should be enough to make us all count our lucky stars he was kept away from the Oval Office.

But John McCain - and his sidekick Huckleberry Graham - have done nothing but advocate for war since they became "experts" on foreign policy, despite the fact their "expertise" consists rather consistently of urging the United States to kill people overseas.

One of my favorite quotes from the article is this one, where McCain argues to violate the sovereignty of Nigeria:

"If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without permission of the host country. I wouldn't be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan."

That "some guy" is the duly elected President of the largest country in Africa by population. He has a PhD in zoology, which made him an unlikely politician. But his reputation for honesty in a country where few politicians have any made him the second in line of succession for a governorship. He ascended to the governorship when the governor was arrested. He commenced to clean house. That made him Vice President, and in this case the President, Amara Yar Adua, died.

Jonathan has a funny name! Let's point and laugh!

And let's ignore the decades of turbulent rule in Nigeria, where coup led to counter coup and democracy has only held any sway for about 14 years. Instead, let's just invade shit, because there are never any negative consequences to killing brown people with our awesome weapons.

America has a critical role to play in the world.

We are establishing - with Europe - certain norms for international behavior that should (and have) reduce the number of interstate wars.

But then we wind up violating those norms. And it's largely at the behest of people like John McCain.